November 11, 2015

Canon 5D Mark III at ISO 6400

One thing that has intrigued me about the Canon 5D Mark III, which is one of the reasons I decided to purchase this versus the 5DS, was the higher ISO capabilities of the sensor. For my older 5D, I found the images became noisy (“snow”) for me even at an ISO 800, which limited the shutter speed for occasions like Zach’s recent karate tournament.

So at this karate tournament last weekend I had the pleasure to check out the 5D Mark III pushing the ISO to 6400, still well within in the theoretical maximum ISO 25,000. With my f/4 lens, I was still able to obtain a 1/160th of a second inside the gym with lens wide open at f/4, which is not too bad. The image holds together well, no real perceivable noise and I probably could have ramped up the ISO even a bit more. Fun.

I like the dynamics of this image with the combat of the two boys while being framed by a couple of other contestants in the foreground, the intensity of the judge’s expression and mom is on left edge and appears to be just a little bit anxious. Regretfully Zach was eliminate by one of his buddy’s in the following match-up (after Zach won this match).